Guess who decided to pay us a visit? It's the Cherry Mobile Cosmo, one of the cheapest Androids that can be found on this side of the world. Yep, this little baby's begging for some playtime and, we gladly obliged. So now, the burning question, does this handset have anything else other than an uber-cheap price tag? Let's see.

Looks and feel

At first glance, you'll notice that the Cosmo has the right mix of shine and matte finish. We don't know if you'll get us but we find the handset sleek and chunky at the same time making it a bit less business-y if you get our drift. Don't get us wrong. It looks good, good enough to warrant a few glances and impressions that it's something more expensive that its price suggests. It also has the right size for it to become back-jeans-pocket friendly. That's good news for us. And no, it's not rickety or something that will suddenly break on contact. It's really quite solid and robust to the touch. However, we didn't like the fact that its back cover cannot be pried open easily compared to other handsetsNavigation

In case you didn't know, the Cosmo runs on Android 2.2 aka FroYo. Being something that's based on Google's mobile OS, we expected features that can be found on other Android handsets. For example, the display can be swiped to reveal five different home screens where you can dump several widgets/apps/shortcut on each one for easy access. Here's a drawback though. It looks like the touchscreen isn't one of the device's strong suits. You'll experience lags in navigation and even delays. Good thing there's also a host of touch-sensitive buttons as well as a trackpad that you can use if you find using the touchscreen a tedious affair.

Continue reading below ↓

As for the display itself, it comes in at 3.2 inches. Certainly not as large as what other behemoths might possess. It's not that small either and something that you might expect from a phone in this price range. We weren't surprised that the screen came with a 480 × 320 resolution but we'd certainly prefer it came at a higher pixel count. As it is, the display is in terms of eye-candy is quite decent. Colors come out just right and its brightness is average. We have to warn you though. Using this under direct sunlight might not be a good idea especially for those who don't have 20/20 vision as you'll barely see what's on the screen.

Sporting a rather weak combo of a 600MHz chip and 256MB RAM, it's safe to say the Cosmo won't win any speed awards. If you're looking to run multiple apps while, say, using Wi-Fi on the side, expect some delays and lags in operation. Again, that's something that comes with a cheaper price tag. We suggest not going all "Rambo" on multiple apps and features with this one.

Mobile Internet

Being something that's built on Android, the Cosmo comes with standard wireless connectivity features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. We were pleased to see that connecting to the web is not much of a problem; the device sniffs out mobile hotspots quickly and connects to them in a jiffy. However, navigation through web pages might be a bit of a drag with the touchscreen.

Imaging and battery life

Don't expect much from the Cosmo's imaging capabilities since it only has a 2-megapixel shooter with no flash at that. Clearly, the camera was one of the victims of the cheaper price. Still, it's good enough for very casual, spontaneous shooting. As for the power department, we managed to juice out about a day's worth of use from the Cosmo while using several apps and Wi-Fi and/or 3G and Bluetooth. Turning off mobile connectivity and using the device strictly for SMS and voice calls, we got almost two days from a single charge.

Continue reading below ↓

Verdict

We have this to say. The Cherry Mobile Cosmo is not the perfect Android device by way of hardware. Far from it actually and that's something that's pretty obvious with its sub-7K SRP (P6,899 to be exact). However, it does perform the basic Android duties with good looks to boot. No, it's not a device hard-core Android fans will be excited about. But, for those who are planning to ride on the little green alien's bandwagon but are on a budget, it might actually be at least worthy of consideration.